NIL money-raiser

Men's Sports Football
1

(From an on-line local source in Florida)

UCF fans raise nearly $27K for NIL collective by voting to abolish brief but divisive gameday tradition

UCF will no longer play Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” at the beginning of the fourth quarter

UCF used a hot-button issue among Knights fans as a perfect opportunity to raise money for its official collective, Kingdom NIL. The collective raised nearly $27,000 for NIL endeavors after fans voted with their wallets to get rid of a singalong tradition,

Starting in the 2021 season, UCF played Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” at the beginning of the fourth quarter as a singalong for fans. While some fans enjoyed the tradition, others wanted it to go away. UCF’s collective decided to put it to a vote: Either click a button and “Donate to keep the song” or “Donate to retire the song.”

UCF players even got involved. Star running back RJ Harvey posted on [Twitter] to get rid of the song; receiver Xavier Townsend posted to keep it. It was a painfully close vote, decided by barely $1,000. Ultimately, $14,017 was spent to kill the song with $12,900 spent to keep it.

“To raise that much money while having some fun doesn’t happen a lot,” Kingdom NIL executive director SJ Tuohy told FOX 35. “I think at least on the surface, to me, everybody had a fun time and everybody was a good sport and that doesn’t happen a lot.”

UCF has not shied away from using nontraditional means to engage the fans. For the 2022 spring game, players [sported custom QR codes on the back of their jerseys, directing fans to a specific bio page that included social media handles, charities and player merchandise stores now allowed through NIL.

Notably, UCF boasts one of the youngest alumni groups of any major football power. The university has 350,000 alumni, but the average age of a UCF graduate is only 38 years old.

“They’re engaged, they’re involved in social media, they’re active,” UCF athletic director Terry Mohajir told CBS Sports in May. “The excitement for our program, the youthfulness, the playfulness of our social media or engagement is as prominent as any traditional brand school in America.”

1 Like
2

Can NIL money be given to PWOs?

3

Interesting stuff. I think they are now America’s largest single campus university.

UCF is the largest university by enrollment in Florida with 69,320 students, including 59,548 undergraduates, 9,294 graduate students and 478 M.D.
UCF Facts 2023-2024 | University of Central Florida - Orlando, FL

4

Why couldn’t it be?

1 Like
5

Yes

1 Like
6

Wondering if this is a way to get the top recruits, from a FCS perspective, and get them to walk-on here

1 Like
7

This has become a very common practice over the last 2 seasons. This is a big crack in the broken system. Many P5’s are using the NIL dollars equivalent to a scholarship to essentially have more than 85 scholarship players. Some schools will have >20 players on the roster under this scenario for the 2024 season. It seems to be particularly beneficial to some programs to use this method for in state players and reserve scholarships for out of state kids.

Other cases of NIL for walk-ons are a set guarantee for these kids of $5-10k. This is a decent stipend but certainly would not offset the additional cost for an out of state walk-on.

1 Like
8

We aren’t even getting starters the equivalent of a full ride in NIL cash, how are we going to get it for depth guys? First priority should be making sure we have the cash to retain the key guys.

1 Like
9

Just an open question Jive….

10

Very common but for baseball more than any other sport. Most SEC & ACC schs fully fund 40ish schollys worth of NIL so their roster can be debt free. Some schs give scout team walk ons a little NIL$ but not much else. Have not seen stockpiling like the old days in FB tho.

11

Yep! It really started in Baseball with the HOPE scholarship advantage in those states. Once NIL became a thing the full workaround was in place.

12

Toledo has 2 womens BB players receive new cars via NIL deals. MU needs to step it up.

13

My concern/ fear is that Miami will be a day and a dollar late to the NIL cluster-F—.

14

Already late

15

A day late and a dollar short? More like two years late (and counting) and a couple hundred thousand dollars short.